Hey, it's Michael here and I just wanted to thank you for your support by listening and participating in our live community calls. If you want more unmute, including direct education like Braille and Jaws, check out club Unmute at Unmute show. This has been an ACB community call. Today's community Unmuted was hosted on Tuesday, October 8, 2024.
Hello, everyone. Welcome back to Unmute. I wanted to remind everyone here at the top, we're going to do the question of the day and then we're going to have you answer your first tech question. And if we have enough time, then we'll come back around and ask for second tech questions. If we have enough time, we want to make sure everyone at least gets a chance to get their first question answered. So we appreciate that. Thank you very much. And also, please be respectful and give everyone the same respect that you would want while answering or asking your question. The question of the day today is what is your favorite streaming service? So is it music? Is it for movies or tv? Do you use it on only your phone? Your phone, your iPad, your tablet, your computer, whatever it is, so let us know what that is. Also, I want to remind everyone that Mac bytes with bits is happening tonight. And you can check the community email for all of that information. So go check that out. It's always a good one. And with me, as always, I've got Michael Babcock. How you doing, Michael?
I'm doing great. I saw Michael Doyce showed up too. Oh, Michael Doyce, are you here? Michael Doyce. I am here. Hello. Sorry, everyone, let me introduce to you, Michael Doyce. I did not hear you come in. My apologies.
No worries. It's good to be here. Everybody wanted to mention we posted the unboxing of the iPhone 16 Pro Max on iaccessibility on the iacast. And we have some cool new apps in the directory, so if you want to check those out. And that's what we have going on. So back to you guys. Thank you so much. Thanks, Michael. Sorry about that. All right, Michael Babcock, once again, how's it going?
It's going good. I am slightly distracted for a minute. So number one, I want to acknowledge a thing that happened last week. Um, we published the podcast episode report replay about a day later. Uh, and appreciate ACB community for sending that along to me because I set it up to record in Reaper and then forgot to arm my track, which means that my voice wasn't recorded. And of course it's all about me. So you had to hear me, right? Uh, so I just figured it would actually sound a little weird if we guys had everyone but me. I am trying a new setup this week. We'll see if it works. Um, and if it does not, then just bear with us a little bit. We did get a couple of emails asking, where's the podcast? Where's the podcast? So if things like that happen, just be patient. Appreciate it. It will come out. It is something we'll bring to you. In addition to the community unmuted, which is what we've rebranded the Tuesday calls to, we published on Sunday a digital bytes episode with greeting cards, iOS 18 control center, which is great, uh, pros, and then managing Siri interruptions. Uh, I remember last year, a lot of complaints slash frustrations with the fact that when Siri was responding to you, she. It would stop itself and answer another question that it thought you said. But maybe it was just hearing background noises. So if you don't know how to fix that, go check out, uh, the digital bytes on Sunday. Almost forgot what I was talking about. That's a story of my life. On Friday, we share Jaws tips introduction to place markers. If you're not using place markers, it's a great tool to leverage if you need to quickly glance at a piece of content on a webpage and get information Chris shared at your fingertips. Signs, designs, and labels. Oh, my. If you're interested in hearing about the history of braille on signs and the legislative requirements here in the United States for braille and signing and where that needs to be placed and what specific placement needs to happen, then check that out. Of course, we had the community unmuted on Wednesday, and we also posted Adrian's content. Thank you, Dreza, for that, which was the flashlight on the blind shell classic two last Wednesday. So that's what I have. Sheila, do we have any hands? You do.
Bell. Hey, Belle. Belle.
Hey, guys. So I just upgraded to the iPhone 16 Pro Max, and everything has been great until maybe about an hour ago. Voiceover has started doing this weird thing where it is reading everything, including punctuation of everything gone in to the settings and, you know, adjusted it accordingly, but it is still doing it no matter what I do. If I restart the phone, if I turn off voiceover, turn it back on, it still reads like all the punctuation. I wonder if you guys had any ideas.
I would say, have you tried turning off a voiceover, turning it back on again, and then restarting your phone? Yep. Didn't do any of that. You might have to call Apple on this one. This could be a weird bug from all these updates they're doing. It could be. And have you checked to make sure that screen recognition is off? Oh, you know what, I didn't because.
That'S what it almost sounds like to me, as it could be is screen recognition. And if that doesn't work, as Marty was saying, give Apple a call. Especially if you've already checked the verbosity settings to make sure that punctuation is off. And it's reading all the punctuation. Yeah, yeah. It's like, oh, boy, text messages. And even just everywhere I'm like, oh, my gosh. And it just started randomly.
So one other thing to try is change your voice. See if it happens. If you change your voice as well. It'S doing it with all of them. Okay. Yeah. Check screen recognition. Or if someone else has an idea, feel free to raise your hand. We'll be happy to share that with Belle. And thanks. Bell, what's your favorite streaming service? Right now it's Spotify. Do you use the AI DJ's? What's that? Do you use the AI djs? I don't. I have not done that yet.
Okay. Yeah. Well, perfect. Thanks, Bill. Thank you, Sheila. Who do we got next? Christine. Hey, Christine. Hello, Christine. Hey. Am I heard? Yes, you heard. Okay. Because this is a totally new profile and setup. So I had a reason to need to reset voiceover on my Mac to the default settings. So I did that through the voiceover. Utility and reset it.
An odd thing now happens. I will start voiceover and it will work until I take my hands off of the voiceover keys and then the speech stops. I still get sounds, but there is no speech. It doesn't matter. I can turn voiceover off and back on again. It does not bring back the speech. I have to just restart the Mac cold and then I still right back where I started. I can turn on voiceover and it will work as long as my hands are on the two keys. But once they're nothing, it's gone.
That's a new one to me. Yeah. And I'm going to look at and see if anyone else using the Mac on a regular basis has a suggestion. And if so, please raise your hand or let us see. What operating system are you running? The sequoia.
So what you could try, and this might sound counterintuitive if you haven't yet, is to try to go in and reset your voiceover settings again. I know that sounds kind of counterintuitive, but that's what I would try to see if that fixes that because I wonder if something happened when you were resetting it. If I can get there, I will. Before it stops speaking. That's the problem, you know, is it's. It'S quick to stop. Have you tried turning off voiceover? Waiting a minute or two? Oh, yeah.
Voiceover back on. There's no speech. So there's three reset options in the voiceover settings. There's reset voiceover basic settings, Reset voice custom voiceover settings and then reset all voiceover settings. Is that the one you did was reset? All I did because I don't know where the problem was in the original voiceover configuration. That made me reset it.
Yeah. So I would try that. Just hold your open voiceover and then do the control option and go up to menu and then just go down to the bottom of that. Also before you even try it, I suspect you've tried this, but it can't hurt. Have you tried to install another voice? And ore does this experience occur when you're signed into another user profile on your Mac? It does not occur in another profile, but it doesn't matter what voice I'm using.
Okay. Yeah. Well, I hope that Apple accessibility gives me a commission for sending them people to call them because that's another solution for you as well, is to reach out to Apple. I've talked to them about a couple of things and they're like, wow, I don't know. Do you by chance have a number pad? I do not. I just have the basic magic keyboard.
It might be one of those things where you have some weird software corruption. You'd have to reinstall the operating system because if it's working in other users, then that might be an issue. Like a software corruption within your user. Yeah. If anyone else has ideas, please raise your hands. Okay. Thank you very much, Sheila. Who do we got next? Brad? We have somebody in clubhouse. Hey, Brad. Yes, we do. We have Jane. Go ahead, Jane. Hello, Jane.
Jane, hello. I hope this is working because I'm on my new meta glasses. You're sounding fine. Okay. I was going to upgrade to Sequoia, but Rim said, or the Numa solution said that they had. I don't know. Did they fix their problem yet with. No, they said not separate disqual yet.
It is my understanding that the problem that needs to be fixed may not impact everyone. So the problem that needs to be fixed is Apple has added an additional prompt to provide the OR to allow the ability for screen recording, which is required for access with riminal. If you're the one that's managing the REM account, and you're either getting support or giving support, then you should be okay to upgrade to Sequoia. Where it runs into a problem is if you're leveraging unattended access, because if you're not there, then you're not able to give it permission to do screen recording. And that's my understanding of where the problem is. I do highly recommend shooting an email over to their support team and they can verify that information. But I think that's where the problem lies is, is if you're using unattended access and there's no one there to give the permission, then rim won't work.
That's my understanding as well. So hopefully that helps you there, Jane, and appreciate your question. Sheila. Janet. Hello, Janet. Good morning, everybody. Right now, my favorite streaming, um, thing is, uh, Pluto TV, actually. I found a show from the late nineties that I forgot even existed, and I used to watch it all the. Time, um, on, uh, CB's. It's called, uh, Becker. It's about a doctor, the comedy about a doctor. Okay, well, good. And you found that on Pluto, huh?
So that's all for today. All righty. Well, thanks a lot, Beth. Hello, Beth.
Okay, yeah, my. My favorite. I also like Pluto TV, and I watch, um, one of the ones, main ones that I watched, the old, uh, price is right shows with the Bob Barker and the old. The first announcer, he had Johnny Olson. And I like. I always liked prices, right? And I like that. And Peacock. Um, peacock. Um, kind of. I have to fiddle with that a little bit. But. And I used to stream on Hulu, but their prices kept going up, and so. But, yeah, my question is, um, about notifications. Like, I tried to turn them off. I went, I think it just said the notifications that. That I get, but it didn't. I don't remember it saying off or, like, on or off because I want to. Because it interrupts, like, if I'm reading a book from Bard. So I want to be able to turn, like. Yeah.
You're asking how to turn off notifications when you have a certain app open? Is that what you're asking? Yeah, yeah. Like. Like, just say if I'm, you know, maybe I may have the app quote and shut, but it's still, like Facebook to say I I randomly can get, you know, TikTok or Facebook or YouTube. They, you know, you know, when I'm reading a book from Bard, you know, I could turn the speech off, but then I have to keep turning it on.
You can put on like do not disturb, and then you shouldn't get any notifications if you do that. You just have to remember to turn it off when you're done reading so that people could text and call you again. Right.
The other thing is you would have to go into your system settings and go into notifications, and you would have to go through each app individually and turn on or off whatever things you want to notify you. So when you go into notifications, there's a list of every single app you have on your phone, and you can turn on or off whatever app you want to send you notifications or not to send you notifications.
So this may be a little complicated, but I'll go ahead and throw it out here for anybody that would like to know this. You can also open the shortcuts app and create an automation and say, when I open bard mobile or Kindle. Kindle or whatever, you could set a focus mode for do not disturb, or you could create your own focus mode for reading that will silence notifications. And when you exit the app, it will turn it back on again. That's a pretty lengthy process to explain right here, but those are some things.
You can do, oh, go to focus or something.
So, so what you would do, in summary, Beth, is you would open the shortcuts app. At the bottom there's a button that says automations. If you tap on automations, then you can go in there and set it up. So when an app opens, think about this. If I open an app, I want you to go into do not disturb. So if I open Bard or if I open Kindle, go into do not disturb. And then once it does, once you do that, then anytime you open bard or you open Kindle, it's going to go into do not disturb, which means you shouldn't get notifications. And then when you go back to your home screen and you close that application, you go to a different app, it's going to turn that. It should turn that focus mode off. Michael, do you have to set up a separate automation to turn it off or will automatically do that? Okay.
Yes, you do. So that's why I was hesitating there. So then you'd want to set up a, another automation that says, when I leave this app, turn off this focus mode. Oh, yeah, I. Yeah. Cuz um, I still want to. In some ways I do like the notifications I get from YouTube or, you know, so I want to keep getting them. I just don't want to always hear it. You'll still get the notifications, you just won't be interrupted. They'll still be available in your notification center. Oh, okay. Yep. Okay.
Give that a try. Beth, play around in the shortcuts app under automations, and you shouldn't break it. I won't say you won't, but you shouldn't break it. Who do we got next, though? Sheila. Okay. Thank you, Lori. Hey, Lori.
Hi, guys. How you doing? So I haven't done any streaming because I don't know how to do that and I haven't been taught how to do that. So I can't tell you what my favorite streaming service is until I learn how to do that. But one of my favorite programs when I do learn how to do that is also Becker. Ted Danson plays a doctor on that show, and I used to watch that a long time ago. So to the person that mentioned that she streams Becker, that's the show I used to watch. But, and I might go back to that one day, but my tech question has to do with my lady a last, was it last Wednesday night into Thursday morning, she, Amazon did an update. And so practically all night she was having an update. And then all of a sudden I heard this weird tone that I never heard before. It was a pleasant tone, but it was also weird because when I first got this echo brand new, it didn't make this sound in setup mode. So it was like a, mmm. And so anyway, I don't have the Alexa app downloaded to my iPhone, so I had to ask s Lady Siri to open the app. And then I had to follow the prompts to set her up, to set up a, and then the challenging thing was I couldn't, I can't see the color of my light ring anymore because I don't have any sight anymore. So, you know, it's a good thing it didn't ask me what color the light ring was. You know, voiceover had to guide me through the process. But I even, I even called one of my friends for help, one of my blind friends for help because she set up her own a on her own. And so I asked her, I said, can you, you know, can you tell me what to do? Because I never had to do this. Two people set it up for me on two separate occasions, and instead of teaching me how to do it, they did it for me. So when it came time for me to do it, I had no idea what to do. So fortunately, all my account information was already there. I think what just happened during the update process was that it had to make me restart the device. And so that scared me, though. So what my question is, what would cause my lady a to have to go back to start in a setup mode after all that?
That's a very good question that I think probably just during an update, it caused it. I have not encountered that myself, but that would be, my suspicion is maybe the update caused it. In that situation, when you need to know what color the light is and stuff like that, I would use a tool like be my eyes, get someone on the phone real quick to get some help. But I think in your case, it's probably just one of those things that happened during an update that it needed to. To reset it up. I'm. I'm not sure. So, uh.
Well, she's working now and I'm happy. So, you know. And, um. And they are substantially discounted on Amazon today and tomorrow for people who did not know. You can get an echo pop, which is the half circle, a very good sounding speaker, for $18, and then you can get an echo dot fifth generation for $23. So if you've thought about getting another one, now might be the time.
Yeah, well, if I do get another one, I'm going to add it to the one I currently have. I just have to change the wake word on the second device because otherwise when I say a, they're both going to answer, yep, that's the case. One of them is going to. One of them is going to be named maybe Ziggy, and the other one's going to be named a. There you go, Laurie. They're also going to be different rooms. That makes sense.
Yeah. You think it's a glitch, though, that when the update occurred? Do you think that that's the case of what happened? Because it didn't do that when it was brand new and I had to have it set up. I don't know. Not if anyone else has any idea, please go ahead and raise your hand and let us know. I've not had that happen to my Amazon devices, so not sure what was going on there, Laurie, but appreciate you jumping in there. Okay, thanks. I appreciate your call. Your call, too.
Of course. Thanks a lot, Sheila. Who do we got next? I think 919 ending in 651. Debbie, is that you? Yes, ma'am. Okay.
Yeah. Well, I am still trying my best to learn the iPhone. I have blindshell classic, two Victor reader stream, and various devices. My smart device. One feature I like on it is the Cobi plus thermostat feature. But what I'm having trouble with right now, I have so many iPhones. I have an iPhone six. I got it to update to the latest 18 a version but I was trying to get the third gen se to update and it just would not go past Bluetooth settings and then it was in a hotspot and God knows what else it was in. But I just could not get it to go to general and you know, find the update now button.
Okay. You're trying to update it general and then software update. Yeah. And she's saying, but I couldn't get. It to go to general. It would just kept going to the Bluetooth on off option and then it went to personal hotspot and God knows what else.
So what you can try doing, because we just, we just talked about this in the members only club unmute call yesterday is if, if you didn't know at the top of the settings there's a search field and if you tap on that search field and you type in or dictate the word update, that should surface a direct link to the software update ability in the settings and that should get you around those Bluetooth and, and other options. That's what I would try in your case when, when it sounds like you're not able to get down to the general settings, just type in update in the search and that should help you with getting there a little faster.
Yeah. Because it had everything on their calendar and everything under the sun, you know. And on my iPhone six, which was my aunt's phone, I can get to it real easily. So I don't know if there's just too much clutter on the screen or what the problem may be. But I'm trying to decide between keeping the Se and iPhone 14, regular iPhone. I got the SC because it has a real home button, you know, the dipped in button. Yeah. So I don't know where I'm going to go from here, but I've feel like I'm going back to school.
Yeah, I would, I would try that. See if that gets you there. Just use the search at the top of the settings. I will. Thanks a lot. Okay, perfect. Thanks a lot. Joanne. Hello? Joanne. Joanne. Hi guys. How's everybody? Good, good, how are you? Good. Um, I just wanted to go back. To, I just wanted to go back. To the uh, question about um, muting. Notifications when you're reading or whatever. I have a personal focus set up.
Through the focus thing and I have a schedule set because you can set a schedule. So I have this like on Monday. Nights for eight to 930. I have it set for like you know, to do my Bible study and I don't get any notifications then. And I also have, when I go to a certain location for meetings and things like that, I can have the personal focus turn on then. And so I don't even need to go into the shortcuts thing.
Yep. That I use timed based focus all the time, especially when you have a regular schedule. I think where the shortcuts plays into a good aspect of it and the automations is if you pick up your phone and you just want to open an app and start reading right now and it's not on a scheduled time, that would be helpful, but. Well, I think there's a place in. There where you can do set it for certain when certain apps come on.
Beautiful. Beautiful. I think the focus mode settings is an undervalued setting option that people need to explore to set up what works best for you because you don't know what's going to work best for you if you don't know what options are available. So I definitely appreciate it. Okay, thanks. Thanks a lot, Nolan. Hey, Nolan. Yeah. Hello, guys. Can you hear me? Yes, we can.
Okay, so I do have a little bit of an issue within I have a little bit of an issue within WhatsApp, and Sunday night, I had to create a new WhatsApp account and try to turn on two step verification to protect my new WhatsApp account and enter a 60 J PiN. Recently, like on Sunday night and yesterday, I received the error message indicating unable to turn on two step verification. Please try again in a few hours. It happened three times. What can I do about this? Because I reached out to one of our friends within the ACB community and he suggested to try to ask the same question that I asked him on this podcast episode that's being recorded to see what I can do. Should I uninstall and reinstall the app to fix it, or should I go and contact WhatsApp support and tell them.
Is this an issue with setting up WhatsApp two factor authentication or Apple two factor authentication? WhatsApp two factor authentication. Michael, do you have any suggestions on that? Because I do not.
I would try reinstalling the app, see if that works. I have not set up the two factor in WhatsApp, but I would try setting up like reinstalling the app, sign back in, see what happens, and then contact WhatsApp support is what I would do. Okay. Yeah. And im going to do that today. And if it still persists, then I'm gonna see if I can get some sighted assistance from one of my friends on Thursday and see if they can go into my phone to figure out what's going on with it. Because WhatsApp shouldn't be doing that.
There could be a glitch somewhere back on July 11. So it might be worth, as Michael said, just trying to uninstall and reinstall. But I'm seeing back on July 11 on Reddit, there were users having issues with enabling the two step verification on WhatsApp specifically. So I would, yes, start there by uninstalling the application, reinstalling it, and then trying to reset up the process.
Okay. Now, when I uninstall it, will it disconnect WhatsApp directly from the glasses as well? From the Metaview app, most likely. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I will be aware of that once I do the process, and I'll have to go reset that back up again. Thanks for your help. No worries, Nolan. Thanks a lot. You're welcome. Lynn. Hey, Lynn. Hey. How you doing? Good. How are you? Good, good. So I don't tend to stream unless.
YouTube is considered streaming. I do some streaming from there. I don't really know how to stream. From all those other. Is Peacock accessible? Yes. Okay. Because I just got onto prime and. They say I can do Peacock for. Three months, so I thought I might. There you go. And Peacock does have ad content, audio described content as well. Oh, okay. Okay, perfect. Good. Well, so my question is to. Well, one of them. Okay, the. The echo pop. What is that? The. The. Is that, um. Is that.
Am I able to set that up on my own like the echo show? You can. Someone else has to help.
Yes, you can set up the echo pop on your own. It's just a speaker, so there isn't any sided things that you would need help with setting up on that. Um, it's a. It's got a flat bottom and a flat front, but the top and back of it are slightly rounded. Um, and then it's got a proprietary cable that you plug into the back of it and then you plug it into the wall. And honestly, for the size of it, I think your mind will be blown with how good they sound, because they are. They sound pretty good. We have one somewhere around here. I think it got misplaced in the move, and I kind of miss it because I also have some third gen echo devices that, frankly, they don't sound that good. Just saying they are slightly older, but they're not the best sound quality of audio. So I'm going to probably pick up a echo dot fifth generation, which, again, are $23. And see what I think about the sound of those. And then the echo pop, as I said, is it's a pretty good sounding speaker for its price.
Is it bigger than the. Than the dot? No, they're smaller. Oh, they're smaller? Yep. Okay. Yep. They're very small devices. Can I ask one more quick question or did I exhaust my question time here? Raise your hand again because it looks like a lot of hands, and we'll get you. Thanks. Sorry about that. No worries. Theresa? Hello? Theresa, we do not hear you. Theresa. You'Re still muted. Do we have another hand? Yeah. Matthew? Hello? Matthew? Hi. Good afternoon. Can you hear me? Yes, sir.
Awesome. I have, I think, a pretty easy question to fix. I noticed a long time ago when I have a lock screen and I. Either have, like, my Apple music or radio station or something, the display that. Shows, you know, your pause, your next. And your previous, your track position. That's all there. The title of what you're reading or listening to, if it's a radio station. Or your Apple music, the artist and.
The title, what I did the other day. I don't know how I did it, but the volume slider is not there. And I'd like to be able to. Control the volume slider. How do I get that to pop back up? So the volume slider on the media is not showing up, it's just showing the play pause controls. Correct? Correct. And I accidentally tap something and it. Populated it, but then it went away. I don't know how to populate it again.
So unless Michael or Marty has an idea, I'm going to need to play with this a little bit because I've not used that slider to control the volume. Usually I just use the volume buttons. Yeah, I think I know what you're talking about. So I'm going to try to duplicate that. And if I can come up with an answer, I'll let you know. All right, sounds great. I appreciate you guys. Y'all are awesome. No worries. Thank you. Teresa. Hello, Teresa.
Okay. You asked a question about streaming. Well, up until July, I had siri sex. Then I listened to that through my lady. A and let's see, I also, until this particular device came out on me, I had free pandora and free Spotify was on a Samsung tablet. I know if I got a new tablet or something else, I could get the Pandora and the Spotify backup. And I have for the moment, I have Amazon prime. So up until the end of the month, I'd like to keep it, but unfortunately, I don't get to make the decision, but if I did, I'd still have it. And I like my Thursday Night Football. And that's why I wish I had two SFM still so I could catch the Sunday afternoon games even though I could hear them. But that's only hear them. But hey, radio announcers do a pretty good job of describing.
Gotcha. Gotcha. So you're looking for streaming, is that correct? Yeah. Now, Pluto TV, how much does that usually cost a month? They're all different prices. You'd have to check each one and see what the prices are because they're all within the app. If you go to the app store and then you scroll down, it'll tell you if there's a price, how much it'll cost.
On my ipod touch that I got from Brett Harvold last year, it has a thing where I could get Hulu or I could get, what is it? Paramount plus and then Peacock. Kind of think of the three major networks and the different streaming services they have with their, goes with their network. Like Peacock is. NBC does a lot of the ABC shows and Paramount plus has a lot of the CPS.
Yep, there's, there's a lot of streaming services. And honestly, there for a little bit it is, it was creeping back up on the cable price that we were paying but sprinkled throughout the month of, of streaming services. And I'm like, well, why don't we just pay for the cable company again so they can definitely add up? Some of them are offering low cost or free tiers as well that are ad supported. So you'll see ads on the content. Content. And some of them are increasing the amount of ads you're receiving. I'm looking at you, Amazon Prime Video that next year will double the ads that are played on content. So. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's how. Unless, of course, you pay them. You can pay them to get rid of those ads, but on the version included with prime, they are doubling the ads.
Right. Ads don't bother me. And if it kept the cost down, that's okay. You know, I can handle the ad. Yeah, I'll do that. Well, thank you, Teresa. Appreciate it. You'll have to check into the services and find out which one's going to work best for your needs. Okay. Okay. Anyone check in questions, you can raise your hand and we'll try and get second questions, if anybody has any. Yeah, you've got one, Beth, go ahead. Hello, Bethenne.
Hello. I didn't even know as, as long as I've used Peacock. I don't. Didn't even know that. They have descriptive shows. That's kind of cool. Now, like, since I pay for them, I don't really have. Maybe I have a couple ads, but YouTube, music, you know, I have, like, a lot of ads. But you said prime. If you don't pay for Amazon prime, you. You can. Nope. Nope. So you have to pay for Amazon prime to get access to their Amazon video services. Okay.
You can also get an add on. I think it's like three or seven or something like that. It's a couple bucks a month that will give you ad free Amazon Prime Video. So just paying for Amazon prime gets you access to Prime Video. If you want ad free, you have to pay a little bit more to get access to that as well. But then you'll have the ads, right? No, no. If you pay a little extra, you get rid of the ads. If you just pay for Amazon prime, then, yes, you do have the apps. Okay, perfect.
Thanks, Beth. And it looks like we have another question. Who's next there? Sheila. Debbie. Hello again, Debbie. Okay. On the blind shell classic two, you have YouTube, which is free. Is that the case for the iPhones? Or do you have to pay extra to get the, you know, free content where you don't have to hear the commercials and such? You have to. And on my Roku TV, there's a service called Philo, which I may check into. I think it's 25 or $30 for 60 channels. Are you familiar with that or not?
I've never heard of that service. That doesn't mean t h y l o. I'm not sure if that's the right spelling. But anyways, one of the channels on Roku, and when I got Roku, I told the guy about it. He said, oh, you need the Apple TV. And I got the stupid thing. I just could not manage that remote to save my soul. Anyway, that's. That's it. Thanks a lot.
Copy that. And yeah, YouTube, you do. If you want to get rid of the ads, you have to pay for it on the iPhone and on the computer. Otherwise you will get ads before. And not only do you get rid of ads, but you get background playback, which is what I pay for it for. I don't care about the ads, but being able to just lock my phone screen and listen to videos, that's why I pay for a premium.
It's people like you, Michael, that are making me sad. Because you probably go to YouTube and watch your podcasts, huh? Sometimes. Sometimes I joke about that because I'm impressed. Every time someone says, oh, I go to YouTube to watch podcasts, I'm like, you do what? I didn't know that was a thing. Yes, that is correct, Michael. Background at playback is pretty cool with the YouTube premium. So, Sheila, do we have any other hands? Adrian.
Hello, Adrian. What up, Michael? What up, peoples? How y'all doing? Good.
How are you yourself? Good. Doing straight, no question for the day. But as far as the streaming, I stream from my roku televisions, as well as my fire sticks and the actual programs I like to use as a paramount, plus they have audio description on quite a few of their stuff. HBO, Max the Penguin series is actually pretty good. They got audio description, you know, plus it's easy to turn on audio description with the actual physical remotes of the roku remote and. And the fire sticks remote. So that's what I got for y'all. You know what I'm saying? Well, you know, that's it. Thanks. Yep. I've not used a fire stick in quite a while. I forgot that that was a thing. So thank you, Adrian. Appreciate that. And I'm not seeing any other hands, are you, Sheila?
No, sir. I. Oh, okay. So appreciate those who. Who participated. Michael D, what do you use to.
Stream so many things? I have Max, I have Disney. And one thing to keep in mind, folks, is check out your cell phone provider. They may have deals on, like, I get Disney and Hulu through Verizon, and, you know, there's a lot of different deals. So, you know, you can save some money on your streaming services. But I use YouTube, Macs, hulu, Disney. But my favorite has to be, I like to buy my content from Apple. So I buy my movies and I buy my tv shows. Tv shows. You don't get described, unfortunately, but they're yours. And, well, I mean, as much as digital content can be, but you get your content, you could download it to your device, and you just open the tv app and it's all there. So.
Yeah, that is super nice. I do. See we have a couple more hands. So who do we got first? Sheila. Eugenia. Hello, Eugenia. Good morning. Yeah, my stream, I have all of them. I think I have upennesse, but everything is through Apple TV. And we have. Yeah, we have Hulu prime video, Max. And I don't pay for any because my girls pay for it, and they are free. There you go. That makes perfect sense. I love it. Yeah. Okay. My question is about, I use everything. Apple, but I mean, need to get.
A PC laptop, and if you can tell me some brands, it's a long time since I use one. And what are you going to be using it for? A little bit work. It's going to be a shared computer. And it's just a little bit of. For work and mostly, you know. Yes, regular use.
Well, there's computers for the blind. I always recommend that to people because you get jaws, they set it up for you and you can get the discounts and stuff like that. So yeah, that's where I recommend. Depending on what you need, they also can do upgrades for you, hard drive and ram and stuff like that. So. Yeah, I know about that, but I was thinking about the new one.
Yeah, you don't want to refurbish when you just want to buy a brand. So full transparency. I had to send it back so this, this doesn't play into my opinion of them. Lenovo did send me a laptop to play with and give some thoughts on some new tactile buttons that they put on the unit. And even before then, Lenovo has been for me one of the big suggestions for a Windows machine is to get a Lenovo one. Micro or Microsoft. Michael, you mentioned some decent brands a couple of months ago, didn't you?
Yes. So I'm very opinionated on my brands for PCs. Just because you want to go with what's going to have longevity. The ones that I've liked a lot and they have a lot of different models, is asus as us, they have everything from, you know, 13 inch laptops all the way through gaming laptops all the way up through towers, but they're regular computers, you know, they're decently priced and they're going to hold up well. So I use them. I also recommend Lenovo and so either of those manufacturers, I think you can't go too wrong with.
Okay, all right. It used to be when I had one, it was a Toshiba satellite, I think. Yeah, I've owned those, I used one. Of those in years. Yeah, it's been a long. Yeah, this was a long time ago. Yeah, yeah, I remember clearly. Yeah, I did, you know, I don't. I'm using a Mac now.
So my favorite, my favorite laptop I ever owned was back in the year 2000. It was an HP laptop with a cd player and so the lid can be, shut the laptop off and you can play cds through it. So it all depends on what you want. There's so many varieties out there. I was just thinking about the brands because they keep changing, you know, which is the Lenovo is well known brand, and I like that one.
Also, when you're exploring computer options, I say this in a. In a positive manner, and I don't want it to sound negative, even though, yes, Sunday, I had a computer die on me. If you're interested in what it sounded like, either go check out Mastodon or listen to yesterday's technically working. It was so crazy.
It is horrible. It's actually kind of eerie what kind of sound it was. But anyways, check out the warranty options for the computer, both from the manufacturer and from the retailer that you're purchasing it from. Um, because, for example, we pay Best Buy $179 a year, and that $179 a year covers any electronics we purchase from Best Buy. So now that my little brother had an issue with his HDMI port in his computer, we've set up an appointment on Friday, and we're going to go get that repaired, and we don't have to ship it anywhere, and we don't have to do anything. We just take it into Best Buy. They'll fix it and. Or replace it. Um, so check into the retailer that you're purchasing for. For warranty options. A lot of times, I am anti warranty, especially if you go to the store and they're like, do you want to buy a warranty on this $49 air fryer? No. No, I do not, honestly, because that's going to be a pain to be able to get resolved. But if you're purchasing a computer or you're purchasing other mainstream electronics, I do highly recommend exploring those options.
Okay. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you. Of course. You're welcome. Who do we got next? Sheila. Hey, Lynn. Hi. Hey. So I cannot figure out what to do about this. I have two echo devices, and somehow. I turned on this thing where when I play the radio or whatever, it plays everywhere. I don't want that. How do I shut it off?
It's under your settings. In your Amazon app, there's a setting, and then I believe it's called groups. I think it's what they call it. And you can go in there and remove specific echo devices from a group so it doesn't play everywhere. Let me see the groups. But I cannot figure out how to remove the devices, so. But it is under the groups that. I have to do it, huh?
Yep, it is. That's the section that I would go look in there, and then hopefully that'll help. If someone else has a suggestion, they can raise their hand. We are getting close. Yes, I know. Thank you so much. Check in there. Okay, thanks to. Thank you. And it is ten till. Thank you. Thanks, Sheila. Do we have any other hands? Yes. Hey, Beth. Okay, now I have Verizon. I didn't know there were deals. That's pretty cool. So if I get Hulu, how much would it be through Verizon?
You need to check with Verizon because that's dependent on your plan. They can give you free streaming services on certain plans. Okay. Alrighty. Thanks, Beth. Thanks. Nolan just said hello. Hey, I just got an update. I went in like you said and uninstalled on the WhatsApp application like you told me. I went into settings, I went to general, I went to iPhone storage and uninstalled the app and reinstalled it like I was supposed to and everything worked. So thank you guys for your help.
You're very welcome there. Glad to know that that worked out for you and thanks for reporting back to us. You're welcome. You guys have a good day and I will talk to you guys soon. You too, Sheila. Do we have any other hand? One more, Teresa. All right, Teresa, you're the last one today. Okay. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Okay, cool. I want to know, is that app, is the streaming service called Sling? Is it still around? And if so, what devices can it be screened on?
The streaming service called what? Sling sl I n g Tv, I think it was. Yep. Sling is available to be streamed on almost any of your devices. We actually use sling for the football games that we watch on Sundays, so you can stream it on your phone. I don't know about the ipod touch, but you can stream it on a roku and an Apple TV and Fire TV. Okay. Okay, perfect. Thank you, Teresa. And at this time, let's go ahead and wrap it up. And Marty, go ahead and thank everyone and close it up.
Thanks, everyone. Sheila and Brad and Michael Doyce, for all the things you do and helping us out. We appreciate it. We have a bunch of stuff upcoming and all that's on the website. We've got all the information about the shows we're going to be doing on Saturdays once a month, which is starting in November. We have the holiday gift guide if you want to participate in that. We have also the, the other podcasts and everything else we got going on. So check out the website at Unmute show and you can also email us with questions, comments, or anything else at feedback at Unmute show. And everyone, have a great week and we'll see you next time.